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I'm old ... not quite this old ... but close

I prefer "life's a piece of sh*t, when you look at it" 😁

Can't argue with Monty Python! If life seems jolly rotten There's something you've forgotten And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing When you're feeling in the dumps Don't be silly chumps Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing

We lost Monahan but we're getting Newhook (13 points in the first 23 games) back in the lineup sometime very soon, so it's not all doom and gloom. 🙂

Based on the discussion on this Forum, it doesn’t sound like swinging another Monahan-type master class in asset management will be imminent. Living outside the Habs’ market, I can attest to the fact that Hughes’s adroitness has been noticed around the league. He’s being cited as a sort of gold standard in managing assets and turning nothing into something. I take anything Blowhard Pierre Macguire says with a grain of salt, but he also praised Hughes for doing what he promised and trading Monahan to a contender. Macguire claimed that that also gets noticed with approval by agents, players, and GMs around the league: Hughes is a man of his word. HuGo’s stock has never been higher.

If someone told me when the season started we would get a 1st + for Monahan I would have been surprised. If we waited until the deadline we could have got someone to pay a little more but also had a chance of him getting injured and receive nothing. I’m happy with the return. Another way to think about is which player will sign for more on the open market after this year. I feel Lindholm will get a couple more million per year and a few extra years of term. Kinda shows the confidence teams have in them. But that’s just my opinion.

It would have been kind of funny had the Habs also reacquired their 2024 2nd round pick from the Jets. That is a well traveled pick...first to AZ, then to LA, then to the Jets.

Calgary did the Habs a huge favour by moving Lindholm when they did as I don't think a first-rounder was really on the table until that swap happened. I had them getting a second and a mid-tier asset (third or a fourth depending on what year the second was) so this is a step up in my books. Could they have haggled for more? Sure, they could have tried. But that would have come with some risk either through injury or Winnipeg going and getting Henrique instead, taking them out of play which could have taken the first off the table. (I doubt there were many teams willing to give up a first here which is why Hughes moved as soon as he got one.) The fact they kept their last retention slot could come in handy too. I thought they'd need to retain to have a faint shot at a first so if they can use that to move someone else or as a third-party facilitator, that might be the other 'piece' of this trade some are hoping to see.